


your faith walks on broken glass

by folignos



Category: Generation Kill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folignos/pseuds/folignos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nate always knew he’d see the stars closer than through his telescope with the cracked lens. He’d stand in the back yard for hours looking up, his grandfather’s horseshoe necklace warm on his skin. Made from a metal only found on a planet millions of miles from here, his grandfather said, when he gave it to him, and seven year old Nate held it in his hand and knew he’d go there one day." Space AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	your faith walks on broken glass

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, baby!  
> Or something less cheesy. Yes, it's true, i have returned to shower you all with fic. I wrote this by accident. I'm not sorry.  
> Title from Green Day's 21 Guns

Nate always knew he’d see the stars closer than through his telescope with the cracked lens. He’d stand in the back yard for hours looking up, his grandfather’s horseshoe necklace warm on his skin. _Made from a metal only found on a planet millions of miles from here_ , his grandfather said, when he gave it to him, and seven year old Nate held it in his hand and knew he’d go there one day.

He learnt the names of all the constellations, and used to point them out to his little sister, barely old enough to walk, before his mother came out to put them both to bed, and then he’d point them out to her, too, yawning them into her shoulder as she carried them both upstairs. He remembers having glow in the dark stars on his bedroom ceiling and trailing down the wall by his bed. They’re still there, in his old room. Even when he changed everything else, the stars stayed, the books on space, the battered map of the solar system with a corner missing, the telescope that finally gave up and rusted over when he was fifteen, they all stayed. He didn’t take any of them to college, but he knows they’re there when he comes home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break.

-

His grandfather had fought in the Apollo Wars, almost fifty years ago, his uncle, twenty five years later, and his mother too, as a nurse, and Nate always thought he’d fight when the time came, but when he was nine, the peace treaty was signed, and no one fought for anything anymore. He learnt about it in history class eventually, flipped through the textbooks so much they became dog eared and worn, pages missing and torn.

-

When he was thirteen, his grandfather died, and Nate started wearing his dog tags, battered and bent but still _his_ , slotting them onto the same chain as the horseshoe. They were cold at first, but even when they warmed up, he could feel them brushing his sternum and there was a comfortable, barely-there weight around his neck.

-

When he was eighteen, he graduated high school and went to Dartmouth, majored in Intergalaxy Politics, minored in Classics, got a first class degree, graduated at twenty one, and joined the Marines, almost by accident.

There was a speaker at Dartmouth, a tall Sergeant with regulation blond hair and a scar across one temple who talked about space like he’d been born there, who talked about the Marines like it was the only family he’s ever known. Nate’s grandfather used to talk like that, before he died. Nate was one of a couple hundred people there, and the speaker looked at them all like they were ghosts, like he was talking to an empty room. Nate listens to the echo and he knows then that this is what he wants to do. He doodles the constellations he learnt over a decade ago in the margins of his notes and dreams about the coldness of space, the harsh lights reflecting off the soft angles of the ships favoured by the Marine Corps.

He looks into it, does research because that’s what he does, and he remembers the almost reverent tone the speaker used when he talked about his time as a Recon Marine, and he knows that he’s doing this to challenge himself as much as he’s doing it to see the universe, and he knows that the biggest challenge out there is Recon training. The speaker had talked about taking the best of the best only, and Nate knows that he wants to be the best of the best, or nothing at all. He enrols in OCS before telling his parents.

-

His mother cried when he told her, his sister too. He’s not sure why. The war’s been over for twelve years, he couldn’t be safer, and it was never about that anyway. He doesn’t know how to explain the bone-deep need to feel alien oxygen on his face, the itch in his hands to touch alien soil. He needs to see Earth, marble-sized and surrounded by the stars, and he doesn’t know how to put that into words that will make his father be able to look him in the eye. He lost a brother the last time they went to war, and Nate knows joining up will be almost like him losing a son. Marines ship out for decades at a time sometimes. His niece will probably be grown up by the time he gets back from his first deployment. There are no desk jobs for Recon Marine Lieutenants.

-

In his first day of training, he runs ten miles with a full pack and throws up three times and knows he won’t be able to do this for three months.

-

Three months later, he’s lost almost fifteen pounds and he likes to think he stands a little taller. He graduates First Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick, stationed at Pendleton, California. He gets his deployment date three days later.

His mother cries again when he tells her he’s moving across the country. He thinks, but doesn’t say, that if she can’t cope with him being a three hour shuttle ride away, what will she do when he’s on the other side of the galaxy? His sister gives him a Saint Christopher medallion, and the chain around his neck is starting to feel busy but he wears it anyway and kisses his niece. He shakes his father’s hand and pretends not to notice that he still won’t meet his eyes. He hugs his sister, hugs his mother, and hauls his carryall over his shoulder before vanishing into the crowd of people all rushing in the same direction. He looks around and wonders how many of them will see space the way he’s going to in six months.

-

He breaks up with his girlfriend in the kitchen of her apartment. She doesn’t cry, but with his duffel bag on the island between them, he thinks if it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else.

On the way out of the door, he hears her say that she’s in love with someone else, and he bruises his knuckles and splinters the door frame on the way out anyway.

-

He meets Corporal Person approximately twenty minutes after arriving on base, or rather, is nearly run over by one of the new prototype all-terrain vehicles the Corps have been developing for the last couple of years while his gunnery sergeant is giving him the whistlestop tour. He throws himself out of the way, and rolls into a crouch in time for the driver to hit the brakes and tumble out of the driver’s seat using curse words that would make Nate’s drill sergeant blush. Gunny Wynn materialises at his side again and bellows _Corporal Person_ so loud that Nate flinches, and the driver, apparently Corporal Person, jumps about a foot and a half in the air and spins round. Person is small and dark and wiry, tattoos peeking out of the collar and sleeves of his khaki t-shirt, and he talks with his hands.

He grins, and spits into the dust. _Morning, Gunny_ he says, and pretends not to be eyeing Nate, who knows his combat boots are so new they still rub and his uniform is uncreased and barely-worn. Apart from the bars on his shoulder, he knows he looks like just another boot. He meets Person’s eye, who just grins wider, and then salutes lazily when Wynn introduces him as Bravo 2’s new CO. _Brad’s gonna be thrilled_ , he drawls slowly, before clambering back up into the driver’s seat. After a grind of gears and more swearing, there’s a roar of acceleration and the Victor heads off the way it came. Nate looks at Wynn and raises an eyebrow. Wynn laughs, and spits tobacco juice into the plastic bottle he’s carrying.

_Ray’s an experience, but he’s a good kid. Basically harmless, and a damn good RTO. He’d have to be, for Brad to put up with him._

Nate nods, and doesn’t make the quip they both heard in their heads about how there’s no such thing as a harmless Recon Marine. _And Brad is?_ he says as they start making their way past the garages. He can smell motor oil and he can hear the buzz of Marines talking shit while they mess with engines, trying to get every last bit of efficiency out of shitty second hand Victors.

_One of your TLs. Sergeant Colbert,_ Wynn says. _He’s one of the best Marines in this platoon. They call him the Iceman. Just don’t back down, you’ll be fine. Devil dog rules._

Nate is shocked into a laugh at that, and the smile stays on his face as he meets a half dozen of his men on a run, led by a Sergeant Rudy Reyes, apparently carved out of marble and hippies. He meets Sergeant Patrick, who answers only to Pappy, another of his TLs, and Colbert’s assistant TL, Espera, but there’s still no sign of the elusive Colbert himself.

Wynn shows Nate to his rack and then takes him to get his deep space shit sorted, the sort of stuff that he can only get fitted here. Pendleton’s the only base in the continental US that’s kitted out for deep space travel, so he would have ended up here sooner or later. Halfway through being fitted with his khaki coloured anti-grav MOPP suit, it’s like it hits him, and he feels seven years old again. He reaches up to touch the horseshoe around his neck before the stern woman fitting him slaps his hand back down and says _when I tell you not to move, don’t fucking move_ , and he stands stone-still for the next twenty minutes, until she asks him what it’s like for movement and he jogs around the room and stretches gently until she tells him to stop, peels the suit off him and tells him he can go. He can sense her scowling at him as he leaves.

-

He sleeps for eight whole hours that night, and dreams of MOPP suits that walk by themselves, and an alarm going off in the distance.

He doesn’t know why he wakes up sweating.

-

Three days into being at Pendleton, he finally tracks down Colbert. He’s been in with the tech guys, deep inside the half built ship they’re going to be travelling in. It’s her maiden voyage, and when he thinks about that, Nate feels like he’s full of static.

He’s tall and blond and broad shouldered, and when he turns around at the sound of his name, Nate realises he was the speaker at Dartmouth. He’s a couple of years older, and the scar at his temple is more faded, but it’s him, and Nate doesn’t know why that settles low in his gut. Colbert salutes perfectly and they shake hands, and looks at Nate like he’s a stranger. Nate bites his lip to stop himself from saying _you were the reason I signed up_ , but Colbert looks at him like he can read his thoughts, and Nate blushes. The corner of Colbert’s lip twitches and Nate drops his gaze.

There’s a scream of escaping gas behind Colbert suddenly, and he spins around and plunges straight through it, shouting at a boot who probably didn’t know any better. Wynn leads him away with a lopsided smile, and Nate sleeps better that night, having met all the men he’ll be leading.

-

Nate hisses as Doc Bryan, the platoon Corpsman, gives him the first of three weekly shots to build up his feeble earth immune system, and then pretends not to see the look of scorn sent his way.

He’s silent for the other two, and he actually listens when Bryan gives him a canister of pills and tells him how many, and when, and what food he can and can’t eat, and he thinks maybe he can win the surly Doctor over before they go offworld together.

-

Nate’s doing his PT the next day when he hears someone catching him up, and he glances backwards without breaking stride to see Colbert behind him, breathing steadily and evenly as he puts on a burst of speed to catch up with Nate. They run next to each other silently but companionably; Nate’s always found running easier with someone to match his pace and stride to. When they both slow to a walk after an hour or so, Nate’s breathing hard and sweating, but grinning, as Colbert turns and vanishes into the enlisted men’s barracks without a word. Nate watches him leave without really thinking about it.

He showers and eats and spends the rest of the day in his makeshift office filling out pre-emptive paperwork and not thinking about Colbert.

-

He takes advantage of the relative emptiness of Pendeleton versus being on the deck of a ship with twenty two other Marines in a couple of months’ time to jerk off in privacy. Combat jacks are a lot harder when you share a head with a dozen men.

-

Nate doesn’t realise that today is the day they’re leaving until he wakes up and hears the engines of his ship. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard, and he dresses and shaves double time to grab the kit he’s had packed for a month to join Colbert and Espera, who’s enjoying one last cigar before they’re Oscar Mike, standing about fifty yards away from her.

_Gentlemen_ , he says as a greeting, and they both nod, before Espera drops his cigar butt and grinds it out underneath his heel.

_This some epic historical shit today, dawg_ , he says, before hefting his kit and heading towards the newly christened US Northman. Nate raises an eyebrow, and Colbert grins at him, hefts his own bag and says _Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war_ , before following his assistant TL onto the ship.

Nate heads instead for the comm centre and vid-calls his mom. He cries this time, but she shushes him and smiles, and puts his sister, who cries with him and then lifts his niece up to she can see Uncle Nate for one last time. She puts her palm flat on the screen and Nate reaches out with his own and covers hers. He dries his eyes when the computer beeps at him, telling him he’s been on for the allotted eleven minutes, and he tells his sister he loves her, tells her to kiss Grace for him, and then they’re gone, and the screen is black, acid green cursor waiting for the next Marine to type in his parents’ number.

There are three ships leaving, for three platoons, but Bravo is the only platoon with a ship that’s never seen space before. Nate runs his hand over her warm outer plating and when he steps on board and feels her purring under his feet, it feels like coming home.

Nate dumps his stuff in his bunk and heads straight for the bridge, where Person is already strapped in and pushing buttons. Colbert is lounging in the seat next to him, and they’re engaged in a conversation that appears mostly to be Person ranting about alien pussy and Colbert interjecting occasionally with _shut up, Ray_ or some variation of how he’s a whiskey tango fuck up retard that the aliens wouldn’t fuck if they were paid. Person is undeterred, and Nate leaves them to it, double checks that Bryan and all seven boxes of equipment that he insisted were absolutely necessary were stowed. Espera’s coordinating men with Pappy and Rudy, and Hasser, Garza and Jacks are running weapon checks and hooking their headsets up to each other, presumably to talk shit about the others’ aims. The ship is humming and something in Nate’s chest is thumping as he passes the opening hatch as it closes, and he heads back up to the bridge in time to strap himself in next to Wynn and watch as Person takes them offworld. Nate says nothing, but thinks _finally_ , and he’s twenty five years old, has been dreaming of this for almost twenty years, and his hands are trembling as they rise up towards the atmosphere. Person hollers when they pick up speed and break it, and there’s a couple of seconds where Nate is weightless, and the horseshoe and the dog tags, two pairs now, and the medallion float up out of the collar of his shirt to drift in front of him, but then the artificial gravity kicks in and he feels solid again.

He catches Colbert’s eye and looks away again as Wynn hands over a tablet with a map of the system they’re travelling to on it, information of the alien races found there and the climate of the planets with human friendly atmospheres.

-

Three days after they leave Earth, war breaks out. It’s the first time he hears Wynn swear.

-

Three weeks in, Nate has his first nightmare, freefalling through space without a suit. When he wakes up, chest burning with his need to breathe, he looks out of the tiny porthole window and thinks about the infinity of space. He doesn’t get back to sleep that night.

-

The next morning he’s getting chow when Colbert materialises next to him, looking just as tired as Nate feels. There are dark bags under his eyes, and his shoulders are slumped, making him look smaller. _I hope you’re getting enough sleep, Sergeant,_ he says, but Colbert straightens up and fires a question back; _are_ you _getting enough, sir?_

It’s petulant, and Nate knows he should pull him on it, but he’s just too damn tired, so he just fixes Colbert with a look that his mother used to give him, and Colbert drops his gaze and moves around Nate to drop into a seat next to Espera and take a handful of dry cereal straight out of his bowl.

It shouldn’t feel like as much of a victory as it does, and Nate suddenly isn’t hungry anymore. He ignores Espera’s cry of _get your fucking dirty white boy hands out of my cheerios_ and heads back to his bunk, and sleeps for another four hours before he’s dragged out of sleep by Rudy wanting to know why he wasn’t present at PT, and he hopes the LT isn’t feeling under the weather, should he go and get Doc Bryan?

By the time Nate’s reassured Rudy that he’s fine, and done a couple of miles on the treadmill to prove it, it’s time for chow again. Nate’s still not hungry, but he knows in less than three months, they’ll be on the absolute bare minimum food to make them functional, and he should try to put on as much excess weight as possible. Colbert’s not in the mess, and that somehow makes it better.

-

It takes them five months to get to the Ares system, and Nate’s life quickly falls into the routine of a Marine in outer space. He sleeps, he wakes, he does his PT led by Rudy, who teaches them all yoga and a mix of human and non-human hand to hand combat tricks, he eats, does paperwork and supervises on the bridge, where Person spends most of his time, mostly with Lilley, who takes over when Person needs to sleep, and almost always with Colbert and Espera, who would never admit it, but are watching over the younger Person and Lilley, who are barely twenty two. Nate spends a lot of time here, just listening to his men bicker harmlessly and antagonise Hasser and Garza, stuck on the underside of the ship for eighteen hours at a time.

It’s noted that they never antagonise Jacks, who at six foot five is the biggest guy in the platoon and got his two front teeth knocked out in illegal boxing rings when he was seventeen.

It’s easy to pretend they aren’t on the way to a battlefield on days like this.

-

Nate’s looking around the ship one day, trying to learn her inside and out by heart when he hears someone behind him, but when he turns, it’s just Colbert, silent as ever. _Sergeant_ he says, and gets a _sir_ in return, but nothing else. Colbert just watches as Nate pads around the engine room and tries to remember what his grandfather taught him about fission engines, which isn’t a lot. Things have changed since his grandfather served.

He says this to Colbert, who nods and continues to watch him. Nate pretends he’s not there and runs his hand over the wall. He can feel her humming at him, and when he looks again, Colbert’s gone.

-

Three months into the journey, most of the men have forgotten it’s wartime, and honestly, so had Nate, until he gets orders and an update on the state of things, sent through from Godfather, already out in the Ares system and trying to hold things together until Alpha, Bravo and Charlie get there. Lilley’s been on the bridge for almost twenty four hours straight; Person and Colbert have been in the engine room with the one engineer the Marine Corps were able to spare, a guy with dark eye and vacant eyes, trying to coax a few thousand more miles a second out of the already first rate engine. If anyone can, it’ll be those two though, Nate thinks to himself, before flipping through the tablet to find the orders and hitting the button on his chair for shipwide communication.

Those on the bridge turn round to look at him as he talks, and it doesn’t make it any easier when he tells them that their brother Marines are dying, and they’re still two months out. Unless diplomacy wins out, they’ll likely be landing, loading the platoon into Victors, and going straight to the front line to fight. Wynn looks at him when he hits the button to turn the comm off, and when he doesn’t say anything, that’s when Nate knows how bad this is going to be. He gets up and leaves the bridge, lets his feet carry him without thinking all the way to the engine room.

 He likes it there, likes how the buzz of the engine drowns everything else out, and he completely forgets there are people in there until he reaches the door and is knocked flying by Colbert who storms off down the corridor, muttering darkly. Nate watches him go before stepping into the room cautiously. The engineer is standing there doing nothing, apparently just listening as Person rants and raves, waist deep inside a hatch in the engine. Something clunks, and he swears again before pulling his head out. _LT!_ he cries, waving a spanner above his head. _More good news about us flying to our deaths?_

_Shut up, Ray,_ Colbert says, re-entering the room and skirting around Nate this time, as if he doesn’t want to touch him. They start arguing, and Nate catches the eye of the engineer, who still hasn’t spoken or moved, as Colbert pulls a roll of duct tape out of the box he was carrying and replaces Person in the hatch. There’s a few seconds and the hum gets louder and then dies down until it’s almost inaudible.

Colbert emerges from the hatch grinning, and tosses the roll of tape at Person, who fumbles it before catching it and dropping it into the box at his feet.

_Person_ , Nate says, automatically, and he spins round to look at him. _Now that the ship is working infinitely faster than before, maybe you should relieve Lilley before he passes out._

Person salutes lazily and vanishes, and the engineer looks between Nate and Colbert before gathering up the box and making his own escape, until it’s just Colbert, smudged with oil, and Nate, feeling overdressed in his cammies. _This ship cost a billion dollars, near enough,_ Nate says, conversationally. Colbert raises an eyebrow, smirking.

_Sir?_

_A billion dollars, and you fixed it with a roll of duct tape._

Colbert’s smirk gets wider, and he saunters past Nate. Nate didn’t even know sauntering was a thing people did in the real world. _Marines make do, sir_ , he says, and if Nate didn’t know better, he’d say there was a look in Colbert’s eye that’s almost predatory, but he’s gone before Nate can look again, disappearing down the corridor.

Nate watches him leave and doesn’t know why he’s so frustrated.

He goes back to his bunk and sleeps more soundly than he has previous nights.  That frustrates him too. Maybe he’s losing his mind, he thinks idly, staring at the dull silver roof of his rack. He wouldn’t be the first, and it’s easier than accepting that Colbert is what’s getting to him, not this ship.

-

For such a small ship, Nate is honestly surprised as how often he wanders the corridors to find them deserted. Most Marines are in the gym or on the bridge, and the rest of the ship feels almost abandoned. Nate almost likes it more, that way. The corridors feel bigger, less compressed, and considering the last three nightmares have been about the walls literally closing in on him, he’s welcoming the high ceilings and wide hallways. He’s looking out of the one of the portholes; they’re passing the Apollo system that his grandfather fought in for almost fifteen years. He thought the one inhabitable planet would look less like Earth. He’s not sure why. The landmass looks different, but the oceans are blue, there are clouds blurring the land, and if you squint, it looks like home. It doesn’t look war-torn. He doesn’t know why that surprises him, either.

He’s looking out of the one of the portholes and he doesn’t feel like he’s tumbling through space. It’s equal parts disappointing and reassuring. A meteor blazes in the distance, and Nate imagines he can feel the heat from it through the glass. He moves on.

Colbert’s in the engine room again, just looking at the half-open hatch. The engine is almost soundless, but Nate can still feel her in his footsteps. Nate thinks about walking past, decides he’s going to leave Colbert to his thoughts, and then he turns around, looks Nate in the eye, and Nate stops. _Do you ever think about what happens if this engine stops?_ Colbert asks.

Nate, still in the doorway, shakes his head. _Honestly,_ he says, wry, _I’m too preoccupied with what happens if it doesn’t._ Colbert tilts his head, just slightly, and Nate moves further into the room. _In three weeks and two days, we land on Dionysus, and it’s my job to make sure that the twenty two Marines who leave this ship are there to get back on it at the end of everything._

Something in Colbert’s face twitches and he drops his gaze. _If the engine stops, the power in the ship goes. We have back-up generators, sure, but they run on gas. It’s the twenty third century, and we can’t get a back-up generator that lasts longer than two days. First the lights go. Then the heat. When the oxygen goes, six hours later, most of us will have frozen to death anyway._ He says it all in one tone, and then looks back up at Nate. His eyes are blue. That’s not important, but Nate notices it anyway.

When Colbert gets up and leaves, it feels monumental. Nate still feels like there’s not enough oxygen in the room, and it takes every inch of his SERE training not to flinch away when Colbert brushes past him carelessly.

-

They land on Dionysus and everything goes to hell. They go from ship to the all-terrain Victors used to traverse the rocky outcrop the planet seems to be made of. When Nate’s not shooting at people who are just defending a planet he invaded, he thinks that he shouldn’t be surprised that they’re trapped in the middle of all this madness on a planet named for the god of ritual insanity.

When he gets a second to breathe, there’s blue blood spattered on his face and his gun shines dully in the unnatural sunlight. He hears shouts for a Corpsman, and Bryan elbows past, not rude, just laser-focused to a Marine in need. He can feel the sweat pooling in the small of his back, under the three layers that he’s wearing that will do nothing to stop him being eviscerated by the enemy.

It’s hard to think of them as the enemy. Nate knows it should be easy, he’s watched them kill his brothers [none of the men he considers _his_ , thank god], but they look almost human, bar the pale green skin and pupil-less eyes, the diamond-hard nails sharpened to a point, and so Nate can’t even look at them dead.

His vision blurs, and he can’t remember the last time he ate or slept or didn’t have a gun in his hand, and before he know it, his knees have folded underneath him, and he’s saved from hitting the floor by an arm around his waist and a body flush against his. He closes his eyes and focuses, and when he opens them again, his vision is less blurred, and while he’d probably still fail the DUI test, he thinks he can support his own weight now. It takes him a while to realise his hand no longer has a gun in it, opening and closing his fist three or four times as if the weapon will have materialised this time, and when he turns to look at the person who hasn’t yet let go of his waist.

Colbert. _Sergeant,_ Nate says, standing taller, but still dwarfed by Colbert’s bigger frame. _Let me g-_  Colbert refuses to let go, and even talks over Nate.

_Sir, when was the last time you slept?_

_Irrelevant. Sergeant Colbert, I understand we’re in an active war zone, but I am your commanding officer. Let me go. Now._

_Negative, sir. You were going to hit the dirt if I didn’t catch you, and you look like you’ve either just had the most mind-blowing sex it’s possible to have, or you’re dying._ Colbert is half lifting, half quick-marching him away from the hordes of dead bodies, back towards the command post, where there are bunks and plates of lukewarm food. Nate doesn’t struggle only because he’s so tired he can’t feel his hands and feet, and also because Colbert has stashed his gun somewhere on his person that Nate can’t see. He’ll eat, and nap, and then threaten Colbert into giving his gun back.

-

Nate sleeps for eighteen hours and doesn’t dream. By the time he wakes up, three more Marines have been killed, and they’ve taken the village. He still doesn’t really know why they invaded; the sleep didn’t answer that for him. He wakes up to find his gun tucked half-under his pillow, and no Colbert in sight.

-

Three weeks into combat, Nate no longer flinches when he kills.

-

He sleeps maybe an hour a night. He’s still having nightmares. They’re somehow less important than his growing apathy for the bodies at his feet. And he still hasn’t seen Colbert since the time he dragged him off the front line.

-

On the third push, Nate has to make the decision. Everything rests on him, and he has to make a snap decision.

It’s the wrong one, and men die. Not his men, not Bravo’s men, but that’s somehow worse.

He watches Bryan try to save one of them, watches his hands turn pink and red and darker as he tries to keep the guy’s internal organs from falling out. He stands at Colbert’s shoulder and pretends he can’t feel the fine tremble from the other man, pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes. Nate gave the order, but it was Colbert that hesitated, Colbert that could have fired his weapon but didn’t, and Nate’s not a mind-reader but he knows that Colbert’s thinking if he’d just fired his weapon, just once, he could have saved that man’s life.

Nate reaches up to put a hand on his shoulder, but stops himself. Colbert is just barely in control, and it’s because of that that Nate walks away. He doesn’t know when Colbert became so important. Doesn’t know when Nate could listen to the hitching breathes from one of his Team Leaders and know when to back off and when to push.

Nate knows when the Marine dies because Colbert smashes the window of his Victor and curses so loud that Nate hears it on the other side of camp. He sits in his own Victor and it hits him then. It’s dark, and it feels like there’s something sitting on his chest, and Nate struggles to breathe without crying, empty sobs that feel like they’re choking him.

When Gunny comes to find him to talk to the men, he doesn’t comment on Nate’s tearstained face and hoarse voice, but tells him that it can wait until tomorrow, and that’s when Nate realises that it’s not about him, it never really was.

He thinks about Colbert smashing a window and about Colbert shaking next to him, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. Nate’s always thought he’d know what to do for a friend in need. Colbert’s not a friend, and Nate feels lost. He wants to help, needs to help, but he genuinely doesn’t know how, or whether Colbert would even accept it.

[The next day, when he talks to the men about what happened, he looks directly at Colbert, who stands slumped, like it’s all he can do to stay on his feet, and he meets his eyes when he says that casualties in war are unavoidable, and he keeps looking at him until Colbert drops his gaze. Nate doesn’t know if he got through to him, but it’s all he can think to do.]

-

It’s a rare respite from the fighting. The Marines are regrouping, reloading weapons, finding their brothers in the middle of all the madness. Nate’s been hearing whispers that they’re going to push forward again, but right now, he just wants to tilt his face towards the warmth of the sunlight. This planet has two suns, one at either end of the system, and the planet orbits in a figure of eight pattern. It makes for some fucked up weather, but they’re technically in the summer season, right now. Nate thinks it’s April, back home. He’s not sure. Time became fluid on board the Northman, and a complete non-entity here. He opens his eyes and looks around at his men. He brought twenty two Marines here, and he has twenty two still here. There’s a scrape of red across Garza’s cheek, beads of blood welling up, but he wipes them away with his sleeve. Bryan is stitching up a gash in Brunmeier’s shoulder, where one of the enemy got too close.

It helps to think of them as the enemy now, Nate’s found. It’s not easy, it’s never going to be easy. But it helps.

He opens his eyes and turns around in time to catch Colbert approaching from behind him. He looks up and Colbert looks down, and finally sits on the rock next to Nate, silent. _Scuttlebutt says we’re pushing forward in a couple hours_ , he says finally.

Nate says nothing. What can he say? In the end, Colbert turns, looks at him, and gets up, walks away. Nate feels like a failure.

-

It happens again three days later. They pushed forward, took another village. It was a victory, but it’s been a month and a half, and Nate just wants to go home. His men are tired, only going to get more tired, and the more tired they get, the more mistakes they’re going to make. They lost Pappy in the last push forward, got his foot pretty badly mauled, but he’s alive and he was casevaced out almost immediately. Nate never wants to see anything like the look on Rudy’s face when they heard Pappy scream. Half the men are resting, milling around with that vague expression Nate knows he’s probably wearing, one of too much adrenaline slowly leaking away. Nate’s sitting with his back against a house, made with rough, white, clay bricks the size of his head, when Colbert comes up to him again. This time, Colbert sits in silence while Nate watches him. His head is tilted back and he’s looking at the sky, purple-blue with sunset. _I don’t know what I’m doing_ , Nate says eventually.

_You’re keeping these men alive_ , Colbert says, simply, like that’s enough. Nate knows it should be.

_Am I?_ he asks, bitter, and spits into the grass.

_We’re all still here. Pappy’s still here. Wouldn’t be if you hadn’t shot the bastard attacking him in the head._

_If I’d just been faster,_ Nate says, sounding angry and beaten and not caring, _if I’d been faster, I could have saved his foot._

_Don’t,_ Colbert says _, don’t do that to yourself._

Nate looks at him, but Colbert’s looking straight ahead, through the camp of Marines. The adrenaline is winding down, and a lot of them are sitting in clusters, picking at MREs. There’s a buzz that Nate used to find comforting, the sound of his men just being alive, but it’s almost completely silent. Even Person is sitting, hip to hip with Hasser, who looks haunted and sallow, but better than Christeson, who is grey and blank-eyed. Nate forgets that the youngest of them is only nineteen, sometimes. He remembers seeing photos of his grandfather, just after the war, his mother, his uncle before he died. They’re smiling, but it’s empty. He remembers growing up in a house where the grief of a lost family member was tangible. It has a taste, a smell, and Nate can’t believe he forgot that. He knows what war does to a person, and it suddenly hits him that this is how his mother must have felt. _I don’t know how to keep going_ , he says, and something in Colbert’s face twitches, unreadable. He turns to look at Nate.

_One foot in front of the other one, sir. Sometimes it’s all you can do._ Nate turns to look at his men again, but when he looks back, Colbert is gone, padding away across the camp to drop down next to Person and Hasser. He says something presses a hand on his shoulder, and Hasser nods, smiles, and it’s almost like you can’t smell the bodies of the people they killed today.

-

Nate was raised Catholic, but he’s never prayed as hard as he does on this planet.

-

Nate ends up bringing them all home. Pappy is on the ship when they get sent back three months later, with crutches and in full uniform. He salutes them all, grinning.

Nate’s skin is tight with dirt and exhaustion, but he grins back, salutes Pappy and watches at the men crowd around him. Rudy picks him up in a rib-breaking hug, and everyone pretends not to notice how shiny his eyes suddenly become. He watches for maybe a minute, and then he drifts off into the ship. Their joy is overwhelming, and he knows he should be happy with them, but he’s still too fucking tired. He doesn’t sleep though. Can’t. He sits on the bridge and watches his men from a distance, watches as they trickle into the ship until they’re ready for take off. Person slumps into the pilot’s seat, Lilley next to him, and when Nate slips a headset on he can hear Hasser and Garza and Jacks settling into the turrets with their weapons. They won’t have to fire them, Nate hopes.

-

He falls asleep in his chair, head lolling back, and he should be embarrassed, but he’s not the only one. Marines are sleeping where they drop; Nate finds this out when he’s woken up by Gunny and forced to his bunk, and he trips over pairs of outstretched legs all the way down the corridor of Marines who sat down and passed out.

He sleeps for thirty six hours and doesn’t dream for any of it. Or maybe he just doesn’t remember them. He wakes up and feels barely human, but more human than he did thirty six hours ago.

There are no Marines in the corridors now, and he can hear the buzz of conversation from the bridge and the gym. It’s familiar, grounding. Makes him feel like he did a good job.

The bathroom is empty and he showers much longer than he should, standing under the hot water until his skin is no longer grey and black, speckled with dried blood and dust and ash, stiff with dried sweat and when he stretches, his shoulders scream. He washes his hair, grown longer than regulation, and when he climbs out, towel wrapped around his hips, he splashes his face with cold water from the sink, just because he can. He dresses in clean uniform and heads down to the bridge, where he has to forcibly remove Person from the pilot’s seat, pulling Jacks from the guns to escort him to the showers and then bed, because he’s so wired on stimulants that his hands are shaking too much to press the buttons he needs to press. Lilley’s sacked out somewhere, and Nate doesn’t want to pull Hasser from the guns and leave Garza alone up there, so he takes over, just until Lilley wakes up.

It’s peaceful in the pilot’s seat. Nate tunes everything out, doesn’t think about the war or the body count or hell, even Colbert. He just looks at the screens in front of him, and concentrates on keeping them flying. That has to be enough for him, and for now, it is.

-

Nate doesn’t see Colbert for almost a week, and his nightmares come back in force. He pretends the two events are unrelated. He pretends he hasn’t gone looking for him, hasn’t lurked in the engine room with the unfortunate engineer, Mish, who knows about as much about this particular type of engine as Nate does. In the end he asks Person, who gives him attitude, and Poke, who looks at him sympathetically and just shakes his head, muttering about stupid ass white boys needing to get their heads out of their asses. Nate isn’t even going to pretend he knows what that means, but eventually he finds Colbert on the deck above this one, the one mostly used for storage.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just looks at Colbert’s defeated posture, watches his shoulders shake and Nate realises with a jolt that he’s crying. He thinks about leaving, about silently turning and going, and then Colbert looks up at him, and Nate freezes.

Colbert’s face has tear tracks down it, and his breathing is erratic, like he’s drowning, and Nate’s across the room before he can think, one hand flat on Colbert’s chest where he can feel his heart whirring, beating much faster than it should, and the other hand is on his shoulder, forcing him to straighten up. _You need to breathe_ , he says, _can you breathe deep for me? Come on, Colbert, breathe for me,_ over and over until he’s breathing almost normally, and he’s not shaking anymore. He looks up at Nate, and Nate doesn’t understand the expression on his face, but he’s suddenly very aware of his proximity to Colbert. His hand moves when Colbert breathes, and Nate drops his grip, lets go of him. _I’m sorry_ , he says, and Colbert kisses him.

It’s rough and fast and should feel invasive as fuck, but Nate fists a hand in Colbert’s shirt and kisses him back, bites at his bottom lip, because he can finally admit to himself that this is what he’s wanted since meeting Colbert. They jerk each other off then and there, vicious and desperate and Nate cries out into Colbert's shoulder as he comes.

It feels right, and Nate sleeps better that night than he has all week.

-

The second time it happens, Nate gets his dick sucked, and he says _Brad_ when he comes, a needy and drawn out moan that makes Colbert shudder, and Nate realises that it’s the first time he’s ever called the other man by his first name.

It’s impossible to call him anything but after that.

-

They don’t fuck until they get back to Earth. They rent a shitty motel room and Brad fucks Nate long and slow, until they’re both shaking. Nate kisses him afterwards and brushes a thumb across Brad’s cheekbone. It’s almost loving.

-

Nate leaves the Marines eight months after touching down. He and Brad have been together for just under a year.

-

Three months after Nate leaves, he starts writing a book, and Brad gets deployed for up to fifteen years.

The breakup is logical, sensible and completely mutual.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t give Nate sleepless nights and an ache in his chest that feels like lying in a cold bed.

 


End file.
